General Dwight D. Eisenhower gives the order of the day, "Full victory - nothing else," to paratroopers at a location in England, just before they boarded their airplanes to participate in the first assault in the invasion of the continent of Europe, in this June 6, 1944, file photo.
(Associated Press, U.S. Army Signal Corps, File)

The allies' D-Day invasion of northwestern Europe 70 years ago today was not simply the largest amphibious operation ever mounted in war or an all-or-nothing gamble for victory on a massive scale -- although it was both of those. "This operation is not being planned with any alternatives," was how U.S. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower put it.

It also was the moment when many the world over first believed the course of war would turn -- and turn it did, although the allies' southern thrust, capturing Rome two days earlier, and German strategic mistakes and Russian military victories certainly aided that process.

The Germans had built elaborate coastal defenses, anticipating a seaborne assault from England, but many fell within hours of the D-Day assault along 50 miles of Normandy shores.

More than 4,000 allied troops died that first day, according to the National D-Day Memorial in Virginia, but many more survived -- opening the way forward to Berlin.

Among those energized by the news was Anne Frank, hiding with her family in Amsterdam. The Franks heard the BBC radio report on the D-Day landings. Writing in her diary June 6, 1944, just days before her 15th birthday, Anne mused: "Will this year, 1944, bring us victory? We don't know yet. But where there's hope, there's life. It fills us with fresh courage and makes us strong again."

Tragically, Anne would not live to see the victory. She and her family were discovered and arrested less than two months after the D-Day landings. She died in March 1945 at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany.

So D-Day was the beginning not the end of the next, long phase of war that would eventually bring the allies into Germany and across the Rhine.

The D-Day invasion was scheduled for June 5 but the weather soured and on June 4, Eisenhower told the land invasion force of more than 150,000 aboard naval craft and thousands more airborne troops and crews to stand down. With the Germans expecting the invasion -- but many, including the Fuhrer, convinced it would come at Calais because of elaborate Allied deception -- German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel went home to visit his family.

The weather remained foul but on June 5, Eisenhower gave the order and the "longest day" began.

The ability to land an effective fighting force from the sea was a critical one -- an ability that had eluded Adolf Hitler. His 1940 hopes to invade the United Kingdom by sea fizzled because of the continued dominance of the Royal Navy and Germany's inability to ground Britain's air force. And because of Britain's dominance of the seas, the United States was able to send supplies, and fighting forces to Britain after its entry into war, essential in both Britain's resistance, and in the D-Day invasion.

It would seem that amphibious operations are less critical in today's world of assymetrical warfare, when terrorists own short-range rockets that can hit landing craft and homemade bombs that can penetrate today's amphibious assault vehicles once they're ashore.

Unlike during World War II, when America was largely protected by two vast oceans, war planning these days has to focus on long-range attack vulnerabilities, including from nuclear weapons, terrorism and cyberwarfare means.

But the Marines, currently lobbying for a next-generation amphibious combat vehicle, can point to current events, such as China's claims to disputed islands and other parts of the South China and East China seas, as underscoring the need for the United States to retain the capability of putting fighting forces ashore as effectively and speedily as possible.

Yet D-Day's legacy is not in vehicles but in bravery, determination, daring and leadership on the part of Eisenhower and Britain's Winston Churchill and the many American, British, Canadian, French, Australian and other allied troops who fought and died that day. Without them, the war would have been prolonged, and Anne Frank would not have had that moment of hope and courage recorded in her diary on June 6, 1944.

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